Disadvantaged Learner MCQ Quiz - Objective Question with Answer for Disadvantaged Learner - Download Free PDF

Educators play a crucial role in creating equitable learning environments, especially for learners from disadvantaged backgrounds. To support these learners effectively, teaching approaches must be responsive to their diverse needs, cultural backgrounds, and prior experiences.

Key Points

• Using inclusive and flexible teaching strategies means adapting instruction to accommodate different learning styles, languages, and cultural contexts. This approach helps bridge gaps, makes learning accessible, and encourages participation from all students.
• Flexibility allows teachers to modify content, pace, and methods to suit individual needs, fostering a supportive classroom climate.
• In contrast, a rigid curriculum, ignoring cultural or linguistic differences, or focusing only on academically strong learners can widen disparities, marginalize vulnerable students, and limit their educational success.

Hence, the correct answer is use inclusive and flexible teaching strategies.

Understanding the needs and potential of children from disadvantaged backgrounds is crucial for fostering an inclusive and effective learning environment. Intelligence is not dependent on socio-economic status, and all children have the capacity to learn and succeed when provided with appropriate support and resources.

Key Points

•  Providing additional resources and support, such as extra academic help, counseling, or nutritional aid, can significantly improve learning outcomes for disadvantaged learners. This approach addresses the barriers these children face and helps create a level playing field, enabling them to achieve their full potential.
• Assuming that children from disadvantaged backgrounds lack intelligence is a harmful stereotype that can limit expectations and opportunities. Ignoring their needs or denying the effectiveness of support also fails to recognize the complex factors influencing learning.

Hence, the correct answer is only Statement B is true.

Inclusive education aims to create a learning environment where every student, regardless of their background, feels valued and supported. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds often face unique challenges related to social, cultural, or economic factors.

Key Points

•  Promoting understanding and respect for diverse cultural traditions is essential for effectively including students from disadvantaged backgrounds. When teachers and peers recognize and appreciate different cultures, it helps reduce prejudice and creates a supportive environment.
• This approach encourages students to share their experiences and perspectives, which enriches learning for everyone.
• Respect for diversity also promotes equity by acknowledging and valuing the unique identities and strengths each student brings to the classroom.

Hint

•  Separating students based on social backgrounds can increase feelings of isolation and discrimination, which goes against the principles of inclusive education.
• Grouping students strictly by similar ability levels might limit opportunities for peer learning and reinforce educational inequalities.
• Reinforcing stereotypes about students’ identities perpetuates bias and undermines self-esteem, harming students’ academic and social growth.

Hence, the correct answer is promoting understanding and respect for diverse cultural traditions.

Mainstreaming refers to the educational practice of placing children with special needs in regular classrooms for part or all of the school day.

 Key Points

• The goal is to provide inclusive education while ensuring they receive necessary support.
• This is based on the principle of the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), which states that children with disabilities should be educated alongside their peers as much as possible.

• It allows children with special needs to interact with typically developing peers, promoting socialization and equal learning opportunities while still receiving specialized support when necessary.

Thus,  the correct answer is Mainstreaming.

Hint

• Labelling refers to assigning a category or diagnosis to a child based on their disability, which may sometimes lead to stigmatization.
• Rehabilitation focuses on therapies and interventions to help individuals regain or improve functional abilities.
• Vocational Education provides skill-based training to help individuals prepare for employment.

Hearing impairment refers to hearing loss that prevents a person from totally receiving sounds through the ear. If the loss is mild, the person has difficulty hearing faint or distant speech. 

• Hearing is one of the five senses. Most normal-hearing persons do not fully appreciate the significance of the sense of hearing, and often, do not understand the difficulties faced by the hearing impaired.
• People who are born with hearing impairment, do not learn to speak by themselves, as others do but they can easily move from one place to another and take care of themselves.

Key Points 

Language and Speech Development Barrier in Children with Hearing Impairment

• Hearing impairment is a great barrier to the normal development of language; the child with such impairment is at a severe disadvantage in virtually all aspects of language development.
• A considerable number of educators of deaf individuals believe that many of the problems of people who are hearing-impaired related to social and intellectual development are primarily due to their deficiencies in language.
• When the child meets other hearing-impaired children and realizes other people face similar challenges and manage fine, regardless of language or level of hearing, it supports identity development and increases confidence.

Thus from the above-mentioned points, it is clear that in language development deaf children tend to show relative inferiority as compared to bearing children.

Prejudice is an attitude that predisposes a person to think, perceive, feel and act in favorable and unfavorable ways towards a group or its individual members.

• A teacher who is prejudiced against a particular community may fail students belonging to that community. He may not select students of a particular community for the school team, although the students in question deserve merit selection against all criteria.

Key Points

• Seating arrangement based on gender, caste, and class reflects discrimination. It displays the mindset of the teacher. Such arrangement shows that the teacher has biased towards a particular group.
• Such practices should not be encouraged because they leave a negative impact on the minds of the learner and demotivate the students to focus on their studies.

Thus, it is concluded that Deep-seated teacher prejudices about disadvantaged groups can often be revealed through an analysis of seating arrangements done on the basis of gender, caste, and classroom processes.

Socially Disadvantaged Students are the children who have hindrances to excelling in school because of detrimental circumstances beyond their control.

• These include children from SC / ST and other socially and educationally backward categories based on cultural, economic, social, geographical, linguistic, gender, or other categories.
• It also includes financial and social hardships as well as problems within students' families.

Key Points

Characteristic of Socially Disadvantaged Students:

• Not enough motivated to do well in school
• Poor academic performance, high drop-out rates
• Emotional Deprivation, lack of adequate nurturance
• Lack of analytic ability which is essential for learning
• Reading, and other learning disabilities, adjustment problems
• No exposure to a wide variety of experiences and facilities
• Face separation anxiety and face difficulty in adjusting to society
• Childcare practices that do not prepare them effectively for school

Hence, it becomes clear from the above points, that not receiving regular health care, is not a characteristic of socially disadvantaged students.

Teaching-Strategy: It is a process, which is explicitly and systematically designed to, ensure that the learners accomplish the instructional objectives. The purpose of instruction is to improve performance. There are a variety of teaching methods that can be used by the teacher for teaching theory and skills in the classroom setting.

For the above situation, consider the following points:

• ​A child should not be treated differently just because he is a single parent child because it contradicts the concept of inclusive education.
• Assigning less assignment shows that the teacher is pitying the child and he has doubts about the child's ability.
• Providing a good environment is always appreciable, but it should be noted that if the teacher provides a good environment merely because a child has only a single parent, it again shows pity.
• So, the best strategy is to overlook this fact and treat him as a normal child because this will show that the teacher believes the child.

Hence, we conclude that while teaching a single parent-child, a teacher should ​overlook this fact and treat such a child at par with other children.

The term 'underprivileged' refers to the disadvantaged section of people who are economically, socially, and vocationally in an unfavorable situation compared to the rest of the population of the society. 

• The disadvantaged section/background refers to not just low income, but also encompasses lower educational achievement, poverty, poor health, financial insecurity, etc.

Key Points

A teacher can effectively respond to the needs of children from 'disadvantaged sections' of society by:

• reflecting on the school system and herself about various ways in which biases and stereotypes surface.
• relating their local knowledge with the classroom environment to make them feel comfortable and participate in learning.
• awaking the consciousness of students to take responsibility for their selves and develop a quest for personal improvement.
• understanding the mental conditions of disadvantaged children and by celebrating unity in diversity in school or classroom programs.
• valuing their cultural and linguistic knowledge as disadvantaged children lack good cognitive development, phonological awareness, etc.

Hence, it could be concluded that a teacher can effectively respond to the needs of children from 'disadvantaged sections' of society by reflecting on the school system and herself about various ways in which biases and stereotypes surface.

Additional Information

Characteristic of children belonging from Disadvantaged Sections:

• Poor academic performance, high drop-out rates
• Emotional Deprivation and lack of adequate nurturance
• Reading and other learning disabilities and adjustment problems
• They are not exposed to a wide variety of experiences and facilities
• They have separation anxiety and face difficulty in adjusting to society 

Learning disability which affects learning, by creating psychological, neurological and biological barriers while learning. Dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia, are the most common learning disability.

Key PointsDyslexia

• The learner has difficulty in Reading.
• Dyslexia is the most common learning disability which makes learners: confuse with the same shapes and sounds of the alphabet.
• The learner is unable to read, interpret, and understand letters and words. due to which they struggle in identifying and relating speech sounds with letters and words.

Hence, it could be concluded that Dyslexia has difficulty in Reading.

Additional Information Other Disabilities in Brief:

The term 'underprivileged' refers to the disadvantaged section of people who are economically, socially, and vocationally in an unfavourable situation compared to the rest of the population of the society. The disadvantaged section/background refers to not just low income, but also encompasses lower educational achievement, poverty, poor health, financial insecurity, etc.​

Key Points

• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009, entitles every child of age 6 to 14 years to a right to free and compulsory education in a neighbourhood school till completion of elementary education.
• Section 8(c) of the RTE Act, 2009 provides that the appropriate government would ensure that the child belonging to weaker section and the child belonging to disadvantaged group are not discriminated against and prevented from pursuing and completing elementary education on any grounds.
• Further, Section 12 (1) (c) of RTE Act, 2009 provides that all specified category schools and unaided schools shall admit at least 25% children belonging to weaker section and disadvantaged group in the neighbourhood in class I and provide free and compulsory elementary education till its completion. 

Hence, we conclude that education of socially and economically disadvantaged children deserves ​supportive governmental policy.

The term ‘underprivileged’ is used to refer to the disadvantaged section of people who are economically, socially, or geographically backward. 

•  The disadvantaged section/background refers to not just low income, but also encompasses lower educational achievement, poverty, poor health, financial insecurity, etc.​

Key Points

• Disadvantaged children are in an unfavorable position compared to other sections of society.
• They do not have access to proper nutrition, proper health care, proper education, and skill development.
• Poverty makes these children disadvantaged and deprives them of minimum basic facilities.
• Delinquent children are the children involved in any kind of criminal behavior.
• Special children are children with special needs due to certain physical or intellectual disabilities.
• Backward children are children belonging to a certain backward community of areas.​

Hence, Disadvantaged children is the term used to denote children who are deprived of minimum basic facilities.

Important Points Strategies to cater to the needs of a socially disadvantaged child:

• Such a child has characteristics like backwardness, frustration, aggression delinquency, inferiority complex, alienation, and lack of motivation.
• A teacher should try to find out more about them and involve them in class discussions. 
• Interest in learning has to be, created by the teacher, effort should be towards developing self-confidence, self-respect, and a sense of cultural identity.
• The curriculum should be specific and related to the needs and real-life experiences.
• Emphasis should be on learning manual skills, life skills, and technical efficiency.
• Measures like increasing the access of schools to children either by opening new schools, providing residential facilities to them, or opting for open learning systems (open schools, non-formal education centers) may be used for socially disadvantaged children. 

Students come to the classroom with a range of abilities, experiences, and backgrounds. Some students will have special needs and disabilities, while others will have additional learning needs and/or elements of educational disadvantage which are not formally recognized.

• Disadvantaged Learner - The socially disadvantaged child is one who is from a socially and economically backward section of the community, who cannot profit from school because of deprivation of one sort or another.
• Deprived Learner - The term 'underprivileged' refers to the disadvantaged section of people who are economically, socially, and vocationally in an unfavorable situation compared to the rest of the population of the society. 

Key Points

• To address the learners from disadvantaged and deprived groups, a teacher should foster a sense of belonging among all students.
• Teachers should use a curriculum based on local culture and language to help 'disadvantaged' and 'deprived' learners to be aware of different cultures and languages which enhances learning effectively.
• Ensuring an inclusive and supportive learning environment for these groups is an important part of educational strategy. They may require adaptions to the curriculum, the learning materials, or to the physical environment to enable them to fully participate.
• Encouraging disadvantaged and deprived groups to articulate their own identified challenges, issues and needs can assist practitioners to adapt activities and materials to allow them to access the learning as fully as possible.
• Consideration of diversity helps in the inclusion of learners from disadvantaged and deprived groups and makes them feel a sense of belongingness. Diverse methods such as oral reading, recitation, group work, role-play, and peer- learning can be effective in the case of these learners.

Hence, to address the learners from disadvantaged and deprived groups, a teacher should foster a sense of belonging among all students.

Children from different backgrounds have contrasting experiences at school. Less advantaged children are more likely to feel a lack of control over their learning, and to become reluctant recipients of the taught curriculum.

Key PointsFactors that negatively influence the education of learners from 'disadvantaged' and 'deprived' backgrounds:

• Children from less advantaged backgrounds are more likely to feel less involved in learning.

The socially disadvantaged child is one who is from a socially and economically backward section of the community, who cannot profit from school because of deprivation of one sort or another. Such children show cumulative academic deficits, a high dropout rate, and a progressive decline in intellectual functioning. 

Key Points

Strategies to cater to the needs of a socially disadvantaged child:

• Such a child has characteristics like backwardness, frustration, aggression delinquency, inferiority complex, alienation, and lack of motivation.
• A teacher should try to find out more about them and involve them in class discussions. 
• Interest in learning has to be, created by the teacher, effort should be towards developing self-confidence, self-respect, and a sense of cultural identity.
• The curriculum should be specific and related to the needs and real-life experiences.
• Emphasis should be on learning manual skills, life skills, and technical efficiency.
• Measures like increasing the access of schools to children either by opening new schools, providing residential facilities to them, or opting for open learning systems (open school, non-formal education centres) may be used for socially disadvantaged children. 

Thus from the above-mentioned points, it is clear that opening residential schools would be the most appropriate way to encourage disadvantaged children to attend school regularly.